The unit of measure in Civil 3D may cause confusion; there are legacy functions, and commands for ACAD and C3D. By default an Imperial and Metric version is installed with two seprate icons; if you select one or the other are you then trapped in one unit of measure or the other and why. Inconsistencies can be introduced or may preexist in the templates, in the metric template a subassembly length set to 7.20 Meter when zoomed out has a dimension of 7.20 Inches - documented in this video clip. From a computer graphics standpoint, 1 model space unit is a set number of screen pixels at some resolution, this standard pixel length is then the base designation for a unit of measure, such as meter or feet.

Under the Hood

The detailed explanation for the difference between metric and imperial versions is simple, it is the "user Profiles used during startup... the difference is the template set as the QNew template, these are Metric and Imperial." blog The literature for Civil 3D ignores the details of units and how to change the settings but provides a solid knowledge foundation to start from; the Civil 3D documentation provides most of the settings and commands, the Wiley Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 Authored by James Wedding provides a detailed review of ambient settings, and specific issues are addressed in online forums profile view text, modelunit, and inquiry tool. These three sources provide the form and function of the unit settings but not the behavior. Experienced Civil 3D modellers will tell you it is important to (you must) start with either the metric or imperial template and stay within one without changing the settings - why is apparently not easy to explain.

2012 Default Settings

Metric: Meter modelspace unit, decimal unit of measure type, and meter ambient setting with exception of dimension, that is millimeter

Imperial: In an ad-hoc test for this article, the Imperial template appeared to have two default settings that changed after the file was open for a few minutes.

Imperial (first check): Inch modelspace unit and feet drawing unit, architectural unit of measure type, feet ambient setting with exception of dimension that is inch

Imperial (second check; changes after file is open a few minutes): Feet modelspace unit, decimal unit of measure type, feet ambient setting with exception of dimension that is inch

Changing Unit Settings

There are several unit settings, these are modelspace unit, ambient settings, unit of measure type, and scale. These settings have an affect on displayed units, such as stationing unit of measure, Properties unit of measure, Inquiry tool unit of measure, and Quantity takeoff unit of measure.

Non-typical Modelspace Unit

While feet is the default modelspace unit, the inch modelspace unit of measure does not appear to have detrimental affects on polylines when combined with the engineering unit of measure type. But, as expected, if modeled in inch and the modelspace is changed to feet or the unit of measure is changed to decimal, the displayed units of measure are incorrect. In inch modelspace the profile view text is too small to see and cannot be resized to a viewable font size.

The ancient egyptian Khet - useful for virtually recreating the scope, time, and cost of building the pyramids, a longtime favorite of idle engineers - cannot be added (or any other historical unit) as a custom unit of measure or modelspace unit; this would be a nice and easily written feature.

Autodesk forum contributors have stated that Autodesk C3D software engineers assumed that a sub-foot unit was not necessary and so selected foot at the base modelspace unit. As a result, elevations in increments of less than a foot are not possible except for the use of a workaround. From pragmatic (real world testing) it looks like the modelspeace unit 'inch' does not affect the specific application of the C3D application; at least for polylines. Possibly, the C3D algorithms like superelevation calculations based on design speed will not work - the bloggers did not give specific issues to expect. Also, the retaining wall given in the imperial tool pallet is still metric and the profile view text in in metric scale; both are extremely small and therefore unusable; not an issue since the profile is changed with a table and the default retainingwall is not much anyways.

Changing Modelspace and Display Units

Approach to checking changes

To change the modelspace and display units first indentify the Civil 3D unit of measure displays and features you are using - some are given above. Then systematically change each variable and note the affect on each of the displays and features you use. Create a table with each test run as rows and columns for the affected display of features and the variable settings.

Changing from Metric to Imperial

Begin with the Metric template, a dimensional 3D model using the dimensions 39.370 inch per meter and then change from metric settings to english settings, then modify these settings to adjust for the inch unit. This process is a deliberate misuse of the C3D application intended to 'shake-out' the details of the units and find the boundaries of the application and the behavior of the units functions and settings. It is a good learning process for students of C3D and should be a course assignment. Issues changing from Metric to Imperial settings with the profile view text height and toolpalette retaining wall are still unresolved and are a 'challenge' task for students.

References

Civil 3D documentation

Wiley Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 by James Wedding

Peterson, F. and Fischer, M. “CIFE Wiki Technical Report: AutoCAD Civil 3D Modelspace Units.” CIFE wiki. Stanford University Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. Last accessed 08 July 2011. http://cife.stanford.edu/wiki/doku.php?id=granite:3dmodelling:modelspaceunits

AutoCAD Civil 3D

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Civil 3D Modelspace Units

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Introduction